November 2009

In this issue

Message from the Chair

First and foremost, I would like to encourage you plan to come to the APS March meeting in 2010, to be held in Portland, Oregon. Arthur Suits, the chair elect, has arranged a terrific set of topics for focus sessions and regular sessions of the Division of Chemical Physics. I strongly encourage you to consider submitting an abstract to the sessions. Remember that all members of the American Physical Society are entitled to present a paper or poster at a National meeting, which is a wonderful opportunity for students. Members of DCP often find other sessions and symposia at the March meeting of great interest and relevance to their research, perhaps often more so than at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Take the time to peruse this year's topics, and don't miss out!

Which brings me to the issue of the future of DCP. After my stint as chair-elect, and now since last March as chair, I have become convinced that APS and DCP is the right place to be for many of us whose major field is best described as Chemical Physics. The atmosphere at American Physical Society meetings is open and friendly. APS sees itself in part as a training ground for students; many senior scientists remember fondly their own first presentation at a national APS meeting. APS has instituted strong rules to preserve and encourage this open and accepting atmosphere.

The DCP is healthy and the sessions are strong. Nonetheless, there are many students and more senior scientists who really should be members of DCP, but don't know it yet. Or, they may be members, and don't make a habit of attending the March meeting. They may be members of APS but not of DCP. Thus I'm asking you, members of the "choir" so to speak, to pass the word, to think of colleagues to whom you could mention the advantages of APS and in particular DCP. Above all, I'm asking you to tell students you know. They are the future of the field, and initial student membership in APS is free!

See you in Portland!

Rick Heller,
Chair, DCP

APS DCP Poster competition!

This year, for the first time, the Division of Chemical Physics will sponsor a "Best Poster Competition". Prizes of up to $250 will be awarded to posters that report novel science in a compelling way. Please encourage your students and postdocs to join DCP, attend APS, and present a poster!

The fine print: only students or postdocs who are members of the APS and DCP, with advisors who are also members of the APS and DCP are eligible.

APS DCP Reception

The Division of Chemical Physics will co-host a reception for ALL DCP members, during the 2010 APS March Meeting. We will have good food and drink, and it'll be a great chance to meet and mingle with other DCP members. The date, time and location will be announced soon, but do plan to attend! See you there!

APS March Meeting Deadlines

APS March Meeting Information

Abstract Submission Deadline: 20 Nov 2009

Early Registration Deadline (lowest fees): 15 Jan 2010

Satellite Meeting Requests: 18 Jan 2010

Housing: 10 Feb 2010

Late Registration Deadline (higher fees): 11 Feb 2010

APS March Meeting Child Care Grant: 15 Jan 2010

APS DCP March Meeting Dependent Child Care Award: 17 Feb 2010

APS DCP March Meeting Graduate Travel Fellowships: 24 Nov 2009

APS DCP Fellowship Deadline: 1 Feb 2010


APS March Meeting DCP Focus Sessions

dcp poster
 

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11.8.1 Attosecond Science

The recent development of light sources with attosecond temporal resolution is opening new frontiers in atomic, molecular, and chemical physics. This symposium will cover experimental and theoretical progress in this new field, with particular focus on the application of attosecond instrumentation to specific systems, as well as the theoretical underpinnings of attosecond science.

Daniel M. Neumark, University of California, Berkeley
Robin Santra, Argonne National Laboratory

Confirmed invited speakers:

A. Bandrauk, Univ. Sherbrooke
Z. Chang, Kansas State Univ.
S. R. Leone, UC Berkeley
J. Marangos, Imperial College
M. Murnane, JILA
K. Schafer, Louisiana State Univ.
O. Smirnova, Max Born Inst.

11.8.2 New Frontiers in Electronic Structure Theory (with DCOMP)

This session will highlight recent developments in electronic structure theory and their application to challenging chemical systems.Both wavefunction-based methods and density functional theory will be featured. Topics of interest include improved methods for dispersion interactions, more reliable treatments of excited electronic states, methods appropriate for electronic near-degeneracies, high-accuracy methods for spectroscopic applications, and improved methods for condensed-matter simulations.

C. David Sherrill, Georgia Institute of Technology
Axel D. Becke, Dalhousie University

Confirmed invited speakers:

E. Carter, Princeton
M. Head-Gordon, UC Berkeley
A. Krylov, USC
D. Mazziotti, Univ. Chicago
J. Perdew, Tulane
M. Scheffler, FHI-Berlin
G. Scuseria, Rice Univ.
E. Valeev, Virginia Tech

11.8.3 Chemical Control of the Properties of Complex Oxides

The world of complex oxides is a fascinating one for chemists and physicists alike. The electronic behavior of oxide materials varies from highly insulating to metallic. Oxides exhibit remarkable versatility, both in terms of their chemical composition and their physical properties. Phenomena found in the oxide family include superconductivity, ferrolectricity, piezoelectricity, ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism, multiferroicity, colossal magnetoresistance, half-metallicity, and ionic conductivity among others.

This symposium will explore the fascinating behavior of complex oxides through the lens of solid state chemistry. Namely, we will consider how chemical substitution can be used to modify the structures and properties of complex oxides. Extensive research efforts over the past 25 years in areas such as high temperature superconductivity and colossal magnetoresistance have shown how subtle changes in chemistry can lead to dramatic changes in properties. Similar examples can be found in dielectric materials, half-metallic conductors, multiferroics and other oxide based systems.We will explore experimental and theoretical efforts to understand the links between chemical composition and physical properties.

Patrick Woodward, Ohio State University
Ram Seshadri, University of California, Santa Barbara

Confirmed invited speakers:

S. Clarke, Oxford Univ.
D. Sarma, Indian Institute off Science
M. Tachibana, National Inst. Materials Science, Japan
I. Takeuchi, Univ. Maryland
C. Wiebe, Florida State Univ.
F. Yang, Ohio State Univ.

11.8.4 Confined and Biological Water

Water in nanoscopic confinement, at interfaces, and inside biomolecules has unique physical and chemical properties that can differ significantly from those in the bulk phase. Among the many important characteristics of water, confinement and interfaces affect the water structure, its thermodynamics and phase behavior, water dynamics, and proton conductivity. These confinement-induced effects are of fundamental relevance for the physics of water, and have important technological applications exploited, for instance, in the design of new materials, filtration devices, and fuel cells. Moreover, interfacial and confined water is also a key factor in biological systems, affecting the stability, self-assembly and folding, motions, and function of proteins, nucleic acids, and lipid membranes. The objective of this Focus Session is to bring together researchers from different communities (physics, chemistry and biology) interested in the properties of water at the nanoscale, from clusters to interfaces and the hydration of biomolecules. The aim is to present exciting new results on confined and biological water obtained from a diverse range of experimental, computational, and theoretical studies to stimulate discussion and further research.

Gerard Hummer, National Institutes of Health

Confirmed invited speakers:

P. Debenedetti, Princeton Univ.
G. Galli, UC Davis
A. Garcia, RPI
S. Garde, RPI
S. Gruner, Cornell Univ
T. Head-Gordon, UC Berkeley
J. Rasaiah, Univ of Maine
H. E. Stanley, Boston Univ

11.8.5 New Trends in Spectroscopy

Powerful new tools are becoming available for what might be called "massively parallel spectroscopy."New applications of femtosecond frequency combs to spectroscopy and problems in chemical physics are appearing rapidly, following their revolutionary developments in metrology.An assortment of information-rich schemes are being developed to take advantage of these unique light sources.Similarly, revolutionary developments in microwave and mm wave spectroscopy based on chirped pulse phase-coherent methods are enhancing high-resolution spectroscopy and enabling new studies of molecular dynamics with efficient means of collecting dense information sets. We seek to gather practitioners and aspirants to share current work and ideas on new methods in spectroscopy.

Gregory Hall, Brookhaven National Laboratory
David Osborn, CRF-Sandia-Livermore

Confirmed Invited Speakers:

W. L. Andrews, Univ of Virginia
I. Coddington, NIST
B. Dian, Purdue Univ
D. Jones, UBC
B. Pate, University of Virginia
N. Picqué, Universite Paris-Sud
J. Ye, JILA

11.8.6 Single Molecule Biophysics (with DBP and DPOLY)

This focus session will bring together experimentalists and theoreticians who use various single-molecule approaches to study the molecular mechanisms and discrete properties of RNA, DNA and proteins and polymers, in order to advance the knowledge on molecular and cellular biophysics. The focus session will cover a wide array of single-molecule techniques ranging from in vivo and in vitro fluorescence, atomic force microscopy and optical and magnetic tweezers, as well as theoretical approaches to analyze single-molecule data. This focus session will be useful to all who are interested in observing, manipulating, and elucidating the molecular mechanisms and discrete properties of biopolymers.

David Rueda, Wayne State University

Confirmed Invited Speakers:

A. Deniz, The Scripps Research Institute
W. Eaton, NIDDK, NIH
D. Lilley, The University of Dundee
T. Perkins, JILA
R. Philips ,California Institute of Technology
J. Puglisi, Stanford University School of Medicine
A. Van Oijen, Harvard Medical School

11.8.7 Production and Applications of Cold and Ultracold Molecules

There is great interest in the production of cold molecules, at temperatures below 1 K, and ultracold molecules, at temperatures below 1 mK. Such molecules have potential applications in areas ranging from precision measurement to quantum information storage and processing, and quantum gases of ultracold polar molecules are expected to exhibit novel quantum phases. In addition, cold molecules open up a new domain for collision physics, dominated by long-range forces and scattering resonances. There have been major recent advances both in cooling molecules from room temperature and in forming molecules in ultracold atomic gases. This focus session will explore both experimental and theoretical aspects of the new capabilities.

David Chandler, CRF-Sandia-Livermore
Jeremy Hutson, University of Durham

Confirmed Invited Speakers:

J. Doyle, Harvard University
D. Jin, JILA
P. Julienne, NIST
R. Krems, Univ. British Columbia
G. Meijer, Fritz Haber Institute
F. Merkt, ETH Zurich

11.8.8 Electronic Transport in One-dimensional (1D) Nanomaterials

One-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials, including but not limited to nanowires, nanobelts and nanotubes, represent an important and broad class of nanomaterials at the forefront of nanoscience and nanotechnology. 1D nanomaterials can be rationally and predictably synthesized in single crystal form with all key parameters controlled during growth: chemical composition, diameter, length, doping, growth direction, possibly surfaces, spatial distribution and patterning, and choice of substrates. 1D nanomaterials thus represent one of best-defined and controlled classes of nanoscale building blocks, which correspondingly have enabled a wide-range of devices and integration strategies to be pursued in a rational manner. This focused session is about the forefront research in electronic transport in 1D nanomaterials related to their applications in nanoelectronics, nano-optoelectronics, nanophotonics, biomedical sciences, sensors, nano-enabled energy technology, nanopiezotronics, and environmental sciences.

Zhong Lin (Z.L.) Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology

Confirmed Invited Speakers:

M. Lagally, Univ. Wisconsin
C. Lieber, Harvard University
S. Louie, UC Berkeley
G. Lu, USC
W. Plummer, LSU
B. Wang, USTC

Congratulations to APS Prize Winners

The Division of Chemical Physics extends its congratulations to all the 2010 APS Prize Award, Medal, Lectureship, and Dissertation Award winners.

The three awards currently administered by the DCP are the Broida, Plyler, and Langmuir Prizes.

The Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy is administered by the DCP and funded by generous contributions from the George E. Crouch Foundation and Spectra-Physics.

It is our great pleasure to congratulate Lester Andrews, the 2010 recipient of the APS Earl K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy "For vibrational spectroscopy in cryogenic matrices that combined with quantum calculations, has led to the identification and characterization of many molecules, ions, and complexes across the periodic table."

The Herbert P. Broida Prize is administered by the DCP and funded by generous contributions from the friends and colleagues of Herbert P. Broida. It is awarded by the APS in odd-numbered years.

The Irving Langmuir Prize in Chemical Physics is administered by the DCP and funded by generous contributions from the GE Fund and GE R&D. It is awarded by the APS in odd-numbered years and by the American Chemical Society in even-numbered years.

More information about winners of APS prizes and awards in 2010 is available on the web.

Fellowship Committee and Nominations

The DCP extends its thanks to the 2009 DCP Fellowship Committee, Anne Myers Kelley (chair), Fleming Crim, and Carl Lineberger.

We encourage the nomination for fellowship of deserving candidates. Nominations for 2010 APS Fellowship to be considered by the DCP Fellowship Committee should be made before the deadline, which will be early in February 2010. Instructions for submitting a nomination for consideration next year are included on the APS web site.

DCP Membership

Membership in the American Physical Society's Division of Chemical Physics allows you to directly support a primary forum for chemical physics research. The status and influence of the DCP within the APS is dependent on the number of DCP members. Increasing DCP membership is crucial to preserving this important professional asset. If you are not a DCP member, we encourage you to join on the web or by phone (301-209-3280). Remember, students get their first year of DCP membership for free.

DCP Elections for 2010-11 Officers

The DCP extends its thanks to the 2009 DCP Nominating Committee, R. Stephen Berry (chair), Mike Duncan, and Todd Martinez.

The election for DCP officers will begin soon. Watch for an email of instructions on how to vote. Please vote!